Monday 6 February 2012

Absolutely Febulous!

The week that was! The Monday before last's speed and hills session (following my horrendous Brass Monkey Half Marathon) was a busy affair. Lots of members, old, new and returning turned up to take part in the 'short interval' session.  Arriving at the start my intention was to run the 12 1/2 minutes out and back steadily as a recovery run - I counted the runners down and off we went. I, though, soon came to an abrupt halt! Looking down at my watch and trying to switch it from recording miles to recording minutes I ran straight into a lamp post! I literally saw stars and shot off like a bat out of hell! Someone remarked when I got back that I had run off quickly, 'yes, due to the shock' I replied! However, I did complete the interval in 25:07, just 7 seconds out - I joked that I had spent those 7 seconds hugging the lamp post! I don't though, recommend running into lamp posts to improve your speed! I did go on to have several more mishaps that week so was glad to see the back of it!

I promised myself I would get up early to run on Friday morning as I was unable to train with club as I was visiting St Mary's school in Menston to watch my niece perform in their production of 'Sound of Music', awakening to the dark, cold morning I decided against it! Thinking to myself that I'll fulfil my Marathontalk 'Febulous' target with the Dewsbury 10k. The 'Jantastic' target for January was somewhat more attainable since you just had to state how many runs you would do each week, now we have to attain the same number of runs and in addition set a target long run distance. I had done the distance run but was still short in the numbers.

The first snow of Winter fell on Saturday afternoon, right on cue, the forecasters were right for once! Having planned to attend a meal to celebrate my cousin's 50th Birthday I began to worry if we would make it.  I agreed to drive since I had the Dewsbury 10k on Sunday morning.  The snow continued to fall but having made the decision to 'carry on regardless' we set off in earnest to pick up my Aunty who lives up one of the steepest roads around this area, long term Eccleshill members will be familiar with it, Averingcliffe Road, part of the Eccleshill Tuff 10k route - a race I only ever got to marshal. Anyway the trusty Terios got us to her house without too much trouble - even if our hearts were in our mouths the whole journey! We had a lovely meal despite the very late arrival of the Birthday Boy and being a little short of the numbers booked in to eat at the Three Singhs.  I began to wonder whether the race would be on but having checked the Dewsbury Road Runners website all day they were adamant the race was going ahead, all well and good if there was little or no snow in Dewsbury but could the runners from out of town get there? Alas, around 9:30 pm I received a text from a fellow Road Runner to say that the race was cancelled.

Getting up early on Sunday morning, everywhere was white. I studied my options, fail for my first week of Febulous or get out and run.  I decided that I would take Dave and go up to Calverley when Martin went to feed the chickens etc and then run from there or run walk whatever was possible.  To my surprise as I got dressed into my running gear, Martin pulled his out of the wardrobe and announced he would come with me.  He too was going to be short for his Febulous target.  How's that for a motivational tool! Despite thinking on many occasions that I hadn't really challenged myself - the thought lurked there in the back of my mind that I would let the Eccleshill team (and myself) down if I didn't hit the targets I had set. What a very rewarding run we had, everything is so much more beautiful covered in snow and the frozen canal looked amazing.  The ducks waddling along to find unfrozen water! Amazingly we managed over 9 miles - mission accomplished!

It's a little late to join now to score for the team but if you wanted to you can still register and set your own targets for the rest of February's Febulous and March's Marchvellous- just log on and register it's really easy! Good Luck and keep your eyes on what the team are doing!

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